


Overshadowed

by audreycritter



Series: Cor Et Cerebrum [20]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Cults, Gen, dick grayson is haunted by his past, no profreading we die like mne, old teen titans canon referenced, talking things out, the ending is weak and probably needs a rewrite, there is tea with dev and alfred and damian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 09:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9650312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: Dick Grayson is dealing with a case that's dredging up some unpleasant memories.It's a good thing they have a doctor around for that sort of thing now.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spread_my_wings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spread_my_wings/gifts).



The apartment was full of blasting 1990s pop music and five minutes before, Dick Grayson had been cheerfully singing along. Or, he had been trying to with an intentionally forced cheerfulness. But now he was standing in front of the bathroom mirror just staring at himself.

For a moment, it felt like he was making sure he was still there, but that was a little ridiculous. Of course he was there. No, he was making sure he was still…himself.

It should have been an easy thing to answer.

It wasn’t.

He shook it off and left the bathroom, his toothbrush still unused on the vanity counter with a glob of toothpaste that would dry and turn gummy as the day wore on. He turned off the music and left the apartment.

Hour after hour seeped by and he ran through errands on autopilot, always half distracted with the mess inside his own head. He was running on three hours of sleep but that didn’t really explain why he flinched at the bang of a cash register or why the crackle of electrical work on a street corner made him break out in a cold sweat.

By afternoon, he was exhausted in a way sleep wouldn’t fix. He turned the corner from numbing fear to anger around dinner at the Manor, right before encoded strategy messages started filling the secure group channel.

He edged out of conversations, made flimsy excuses, left half a plate of food unfinished when he left for his apartment. He claimed he would catch up on sleep.

He did not sleep.

When night fell and he shuttered the windows and pulled black and blue over his chest, onto his arms, flexed his fingers in the gloves and pressed the mask into place, Dick Grayson was furious and absent.

His mind was years and miles away, strapped down and full of the tang of incense and blood, while his body leaned over the edge of a roof and he tapped his comm only to say,

“The cult guys are mine. I won’t need backup.”

“O on monitor. Red on standby if you change your mind.”

“I won’t change my mind,” Nightwing said firmly.

“If you need backup,” Batman amended Oracle’s statement. “Robin and I are also available after Tennyson Street bust.”

“I won’t need backup,” Nightwing repeated, a little irritably. He tried to lighten his voice, to not sound so much like how he felt. “It’s not that complicated. What am I, a rookie?”

He muted his comm.

He didn’t need the distraction.

He was already too far away.

* * *

The stupid thing about city cults, from a vigilantism standpoint, was that they were full of desperate and weirdly skilled people. People with a lot of nothing to lose and fractured lifetimes behind them. Men like ex-cons and trigger-happy soldiers with PTSD, looking for a shot at redemption or silence in their battered souls.

Nightwing knew what it was like to want something like that.

Their ranks, even small, were usually full of women both timid and fierce, made hesitant by trauma or loneliness and made forceful by the instinct to protect the one thing they believed in: their leader.

Not every cult was worth systematically taking down. But other cults, even the ones not set on world domination, sometimes ended up involved in dangerous and shady stuff-- experimental drugs, suicide pacts, ritual sacrifice. And Gotham was a breeding ground for the weird.

Illegal activities mixed with fervent acolytes made for a deadly cocktail. The most recent manifestation was a congregation of forty or so people, an adherence to five hundred year old missiles of an excommunicated Irish monk that might have been forgeries, and a manic depressed fourteen year old girl offering herself for spirit-summoning bloodletting that would probably kill her.

Nightwing had been tracking their activities, including the hallucinogenic drugs they were smuggling, for a few days and tonight was his last chance to act.

The Gaelic was unfamiliar but the robes they wore heightened his sense of unease, disrupting what focus he had. And when he leapt, the monotone chanting swelled in volume and the involuntary shudder that wracked him threw off his balance midflip and he staggered through his landing, skidding onto his knees.

He heard the shots before he saw the guns and it just figured that it would be the sort of cult to have semiautomatics. It was such a Gotham thing to have.

Nightwing was already on his feet again and he disarmed three of them, fighting toward the leader who was rushing his lines and standing near the teenager with a ceremonial dagger that looked so gaudy Nightwing was pretty certain it had been picked up from a Chinese bulk manufacturer.

The next man fell under his sidekick and then Red Robin was right next to him, scowling as he relieved two more congregants of their weapons.

“Turn. On. Your. Comm,” Red hissed while spinning to take someone down with his staff.

“I’ve got this,” Nightwing answered sharply, as a woman with a heavy candlestick managed to land a blow across his back.

“The gunshots were called into GCPD,” Red shouted back, while using a shoulder of a falling man as leverage for leaping into a double kick. “We had no idea if you were okay.”

“I’m good!” Nightwing yelled over the frenzied Gaelic chanting of the leader and one disciple who held the girl’s wrists down while she was clearly having second thoughts. Nightwing saw her face, that moment where she shifted from aligned to fractured in intention and understanding.

“Nightwing!” Red yelled and the man slipped right by Nightwing’s punch and lunged forward. All Nightwing was aware of was that the man missed him, he had moved quickly enough and he could get to the girl in time.

The disciple went down hard and the girl was already scrambling away from the crude altar. The dagger sliced through the sleeve of his suit and the leader’s face took a blow and another and another and–

It might have been more, it might have been too much, but in the mere seconds it had all taken, the man Nightwing thought he had evaded made it to Red Robin instead.

Red shrieked and Nightwing threw the leader behind the altar, where he lay writhing and moaning.

He took the last guy out from behind, a stunning blow that wouldn’t leave him unconscious but dazed and immobile for at least a few minutes.

“I thought you had him,” Red gasped at him, a hand to his side. He was standing, leaning on his bostaff. “Sorry. I’m good. I just thought…”

He swayed and Nightwing reached out, put a hand on his shoulder.

He turned his comm back on and swallowed hard.

“We need GCPD and some Bat clean-up here,” Nightwing said. “I’m taking Red to the Cave.”

“What happened?” Batman demanded.

“They fought back,” Nightwing said sourly, torn between defensiveness and guilt. He could have asked for help, he could have gone in prepared, he could have been better.

“It’s not that bad,” Red said when Nightwing didn’t clarify. “Just give the Doctor a heads up.”

“Done,” Oracle said. “He’ll be down there by the time you guys arrive. Now’s the time to be honest, boys.”

“Just a level two,” Red said. “Really.”

“Robin and I will handle cleanup,” Batman added.

Nightwing reached out once more to steady Red, but the younger man jerked away from him and began picking his way through the groaning bodies.

This was his fault. He could have prevented this: Red getting hurt, his own cut on the arm, the girl fleeing to the streets and not getting help, breaking the leader’s jaw. He was so weary, so shaken, so bitter, so lost, all at once. All things Nightwing-- Dick Grayson-- was not supposed to be.

He didn’t feel like himself.

And he hated that feeling.

* * *

Kiran Devabhaktuni was sipping a morning cuppa that felt a rather lot like an afternoon cup of tea after an overnight shift at the hospital. Alfie was reading a newspaper and Damian Wayne was sitting between them at the small, round table.

Dev had taken advantage of both Damian’s proximity to Alfie and his own penchant for stealing and munching on straight brown sugar cubes. A simple nod while Alfie was buried in the paper had bought Damian’s complicity and lured the boy out of a sulk.

With a casual motion, Dev would snatch a sugar cube and then slip it under the table to Damian’s waiting hand. The boy was silent and had perfected sneaking as an art form and he was quietly adding each cube to Alfie’s untouched tea.

Damian sipped his own tea while this was going on and shoved back his bed-mussed hair more than once when Alfie glanced over the paper at them. Dev neglected his tea through most of this.

Finally, Alfie set the paper down, folded neatly.

They were up to fourteen cubes.

“How long did you sleep?” Alfie asked Damian, squeezing lemon into his teacup.

“Long enough,” Damian said sourly, his bitter mood returning a bit.

“I’ll talk to Dick,” Dev said, guessing at the mood. Damian met his gaze with a startled lift of his brow and then nodded and looked down at the table.

“You were out much later than usual,” Alfie said calmly. “Shall I keep you home from school to sleep?”

At that offer, Damian yawned and stretched.

“I ought to go,” he said, “but if you insist on my truancy…”

“Stay home,” Alfie said with a fond smile. “The year’s almost out and I think you deserve a day off.”

Damian picked up a spoon and fumbled it out of his fingers; it fell beside Dev’s chair and Dev bent over to snatch it up.

“I’ll use another,” Damian said, his hand already over another spoon when Dev sat up with the utensil. Dev shrugged and set it aside. He’d thought Alfie was just being kind but perhaps, if the boy was randomly dropping things, it was an attempt to get him to actually sleep.

With role models like Bruce and the other Waynes, it wasn’t surprising he had a hard time setting aside appropriate time for rest during busy weeks. As the weather picked up, so did the criminal underbelly of Gotham.

Dev lifted his tea and sipped it and immediately recoiled. The brew was so sweet his teeth stung and he winced in reaction.

“Everything alright, Kiran?” Alfie asked in a mild tone.

Dev set the teacup down and nodded, but gave Damian an affronted look. The boy gave him a crooked grin in response. Alfie sipped his own tea, finally, and then sipped again as if nothing was the matter with it.

“I put too much sugar in this,” Dev said, standing with the tea cup.

Alfie looked up at that.

“I didn’t think you took sugar in your tea,” he said.

“I thought I’d give it a–” Dev stopped mid-excuse because Alfie was none-too-subtly exchanging an amused smirk with Damian. “Bloody hell,” Dev muttered as he took the tea to the kitchen. He dumped it out in the sink and wondered about the problem of how precisely to talk to Dick Grayson.

Ever since he’d come to the Cave with a wounded Timothy two nights before, and frankly even before that, he’d been acting oddly. Dev hadn’t seen much of him, exactly, but what little he had seen, the younger man had been brooding and reclusive in conversation and quick-tempered. It had worsened since Dev had sutured Timothy’s side and Dick’s arm in the Cave that night.

Dev knew from both Timothy and snippets of overheard conversations in the Cave that Dick had been dealing with a violent cult. When it became clear that breaking up their gathering and imprisoning some of the key members had not solved the problem but rather exacerbated Dick’s foul mood, and that it was radiating outward through Tim and Damian now, Dev spent the night before his shift at the hospital sorting through older case and medical files.

He’d found…not much. Plenty of information, to be certain, but very little about cults and several concerning gaps of long stretches of time-- most of them right before and after the date Jason Wayne’s own files had details redacted in thick, black markings that Dev now knew were about his first death.

For all his frequent failings contradicting this, Dev wasn’t exactly a stupid man.

The Waynes were not precisely the sort of family where one could wander around demanding explanations from just anyone-- after months of feeling out of the loop, he’d realized they kept their secrets from each other just as much as from him. Some of those things were none of his business and others sometimes fell in that hazy approximation of doctor-patient confidentiality they maintained. Going to the wrong person and asking for information might result in answers and might just as likely result in, “He did _what_?” and hours or days of upheaval.

And Alfred, who seemed to know everything and maintain a constant calm, actually hid his own sour reactions and grieving aches behind that demeanor and Dev knew after fumbling through _that_ a few times that even if the older man had information, it wasn’t always worth the emotional cost just to avoid asking someone more directly involved.

So, if there were gaps relevant to his current state, Dick Grayson would need to answer for them himself. Dev ran the risk of Dick refusing and shutting him out for weeks or months, but at least it minimized the damage and isolated it a bit.

“We’re having a family lunch,” Alfie announced, coming into the kitchen with a tray of tea things. “Would you care for another cup of tea before I clean up?”

And Dev knew, as he accepted the offer and poured another cup of tea and drank it standing at the counter, that Alfie was arranging things on purpose. The older man had a way of putting people in the right places that sometimes made Dev feel a bit like a piece on a chessboard, but with gratitude instead of a lingering sense of manipulation.

“I’m going to go sleep,” he said, yawning and setting the cup down. “The hospital was busy last night. If there’s lunch, I’m not going to bother going to my flat and coming back.”

“Cassandra is using the ballroom,” Alfie said as he left the room. “I’ll leave you to decide on earplugs or interrupting dance.”

Dev opted for earplugs.

And seven hours later, after lunch where everyone who happened to be in town was present, Dick Grayson had been pressured by Damian and Cass into staying to swim in the just-reopened pool. And Dev, still trying to decide exactly when and how to approach him, went to at least sit outside (he didn’t care much for freezing his bollocks off in the still-frigid water) and found Dick by chance, standing in the hallway to the back door.

Dev stopped and took a step back. Dick Grayson in best form would have noticed him immediately, but Dick right now was distracted and self-absorbed in some inner turmoil. He left the hall, but once outside, took a sharp right away from the pool. Dev followed, quietly, as Dick loped around the house and then from the patio off the ballroom doors, swung himself up the face of the house and onto the flat section of roof.

“Mate,” Dev called after him, and Dick’s face reappeared at the edge, stony and dark. “I’m not nearly as skilled. I’ll be up when I find a ladder.”

He expected Dick to protest this or swing down and storm off, but Dick leaned out of view and then a moment later called, “There’s one behind the hedge in the landscaping.”

Dev found it and clambered up without looking down, glad that the flat roof was walled in by steeper sections and more like a deck without railing than a proper roof. If Dick had gone any further up, he wasn’t sure how useful he’d be in conversation.

“You’ve been out of sorts,” Dev said bluntly, sitting down next to the younger man.

Dick shrugged.

“I’m sorry about Tim,” Dick said after a moment.

Dev blinked and leaned forward to look at Dick’s face.

“What?”

“Tim,” Dick said again. He swallowed. “I know…I mean, I know you guys are close. And I sort of figured you’d come chew me out if I stuck around long enough.”

“Mate, Timothy’s plenty good at getting himself injured without help,” Dev said. “It’s not your bloody fault just because you happened to be in the same building. Nah, I’m not miffed about that. He’ll be fine. I’m worried about you.”

Dick glanced up at that and frowned.

“And Dames rather is, too, if you hadn’t noticed.”

At that, Dick sighed and put his head in his hands.

“It’s been a bad week,” he admitted. “Just…a lot of stuff I’d rather not think about.”

“But you’re thinking about it anyway,” Dev said, leaning back and resting his palms on the gritty roof. In answer, Dick just nodded, his head still in his hands. “Flashbacks are bloody awful,” Dev said gently. “I’m not going to force you to talk about it. It doesn’t always help. But the option’s there.”

“Thanks,” Dick said, lifting his head and wrapping his arms around his knees.

“There are some…gaps,” Dev said slowly. “In your medical files.”

Dick looked at him sharply.

“Research,” Dev said, not feeling guilty in the least. “The files that are there are there for a reason.”

Dick sprang to his feet and flipped up into a handstand. He stayed upside down for a bit and then bent backward and came up on his feet. He brushed his hands off and sat back down heavily.

“There was a cult, a while ago. A guy named Brother Blood. It got some media attention.”

“I very vaguely remember that,” Dev acknowledged.

“Bruce knows that we, I mean, that the Titans and I were involved. But we weren’t exactly on the best of terms, Bruce and I, I mean. He didn’t ask for updates and I didn’t offer them.”

“I can’t imagine how you ever got to that point,” Dev said, prodding at Dick with his shoe.

Dick chuckled, a little low, and then sighed again.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me either.”

“So, massive dangerous cult and smaller dangerous cult,” Dev said. Dick shuddered in response and Dev’s brow creased in concern.

“I was captured and tortured-- you probably know the usual story by now,” Dick said with a wry frown. “It was awful, but honestly that wasn’t the worst part.”

Dev is quiet, waiting him out, and cursing inwardly at the fact that capture and torture are in fact too common elements of stories that get brushed under the rug.

“The worst part was the mind control,” Dick said quietly. “And it went on for months without me knowing. I…” he paused and put a hand to his forehead. “I almost, no, I sold out everyone I cared about. I mean, obviously things didn’t stay that way, but I didn’t know about the mind control until after.”

“Well, bloody fuck,” Dev exhaled. “Months, you said?”

Dick nodded again.

“And the horrible thing is that I remember what it felt like, to want to trust people and defend them and being completely convinced they were awful at the same time. Just how divided I felt at the end, knowing and believing two totally different things at once and not being sure which was right.”

They’re quiet in the afternoon sun, the irritated shouts of Damian and high, pealing laughter of Cass drifting across the rooftops. Dev thought of his own internal dichotomy, that he fought against even now, of _you’ll never be good enough_ and _you’re probably fine._

“That’s sodding terrible,” he said. “That’s a lot of time to lose.”

“It ruined a lot for me,” Dick said in a small voice. “I recovered but it didn’t fix everything, you know? Some stuff was just too far gone. And chasing this cult the past week, it wasn’t like I really thought I was vulnerable, but it just dragged up a lot of stuff I hadn’t let myself think about for a while.” Dick rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Thanks for talking. It does help.”

Dev shrugged and didn’t mention how little talking he’d actually done.

“Anytime,” he said.

Dick stood and stretched. “You’re swimming, right?”

“Are you out of your bloody mind?” Dev exclaimed, standing.

“It’s not that bad,” Dick argued. “Al turned the heater on last night. Anyway, I’ll meet you down there.”

Without another word, Dick sprinted across the roof and sprang up to the overhang of the sloped section.

“Those bloody slates are loose!” Dev yelled after him.

“Ain’t nobody got time for that!” Dick yelled back without slowing down.

Dev took a deep breath and exhaled slowly and went down the ladder and replaced it behind the hedges. He strode over to the pool just in time to see Dick take a running leap off the roof and curl into a flip on his descent toward the deep end of the pool.

His heart skipped about five beats and he swore, but the water’s surface burst into a high splash and when Dick resurfaced, laughing, Damian raised an eyebrow and said, “Six out of ten.”

“Six!” Dick exclaimed in mock outrage, tugging the younger boy into the pool with him. He shoved Damian’s head under. When the younger boy came up sputtering, he shoved himself away and treaded water.

“Are you alright?” he asked quietly, while Dick floated on his back.

Dev sat in one of the lounge chairs and reclined until he was almost horizontal.

“Getting better,” Dick answered. “Wanna race?”

“Slowpokes,” Cass muttered from her perch on the diving board.

“You get down here and race with us,” Dick ordered. “C’mon. Dev! Sit up! We need you as a judge.”

Dev hauled himself off the chair and went to one end of the pool and put his feet in. It wasn’t as cold as he was expecting but it was still pretty icy.

“Alright, then,” he said. “Best out of three. If any of you try to drag me in, I reserve the right to exclusively use Hello Kitty plasters for a month.”

“I fail to see how that is a suitable deterrent for either of them,” Damian called from the other side of the pool.

Dev studied the matching grins on Cass and Dick’s faces and he reconsidered. There was still a faintly haunted look in Dick’s eyes but it was faded far from what it had been earlier.

“All medicines will be dispensed in liquid form with strawberry flavoring,” he amended.

“Gross,” Cass said, wrinkling her nose. “Changed my mind, Dickface.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Jason,” Dick told her seriously while Damian snorted into the water. “But yeah, that’s pretty convincing leverage.”

“Are we racing or are we not?” Damian demanded impatiently.

“We’re racing!” Dick said, “Places!”

Dev ended up in the water anyway.

Dick took two separate medicines that month, both with artificial strawberry flavoring.

And Dev was relieved to see that while it took a few weeks and a few long nights just hanging out at the manor, the man’s mood improved and evened out and things went back to as normal as the Wayne household usually managed.


End file.
